[...] After 2+ years of work, 145,000+ lines of code, one Icelandic grass hut, one night in jail, one serving of jellied ram’s testicles with fermented shark meat, and countless pieces of toast with orange marmalade, it is my great pleasure to introduce you to Cowbird, a labor of love, and hopefully something that will have a long and meaningful life.

Cowbird is a community of storytellers, focused on deeper, longer-lasting, more personal storytelling than you’re likely to find anywhere else on the Web.

Cowbird allows you to keep a beautiful audio-visual diary of your life (here’s mine), and to collaborate with others in documenting the overarching “sagas” that shape our world today (starting with the Occupy Wall Street movement).

Our short-term goal is to pioneer a new form of participatory journalism, grounded in the simple human stories behind major news events. Our long-term goal is to build a public library of human experience — kind of like a Wikipedia for real life (but much more beautiful).

Our community is still very small. We are looking for excellent storytellers — photographers, writers, filmmakers, journalists, etc. If you would like to become a Cowbird storyteller, please request an invitation (we’re trying to grow slowly).

If you know other folks who would be a natural fit for Cowbird, please send them our way.

Please spread the word about this project. Tweet it. Facebook it. Tumble it. Email it. Talk about it. Shout it from the rooftops, where those silly pigeons are roosting and pooping. Tell those dirty birds to move over, and make a little room for a different kind of bird.